Pallas Athena
by Anon Of The Sea
Summary: For over a century and a half after the extermination of the Mercer Virus, the last remaining Infected, Dana Mercer, spent her time indulging her curiosity. And then the aliens happened. (Rated M for the same reasons the games were, except for romance; Cannon-ish relationships between Mass Effect characters may occur, but the storyteller is unlikely to notice)
1. Time Is All Wibbly-Wobbly

2009 CE

 **First Blacklight virus outbreak**

Alex Mercer releases Blacklight in Penn Station and is gunned down

Alex Mercer wakes up in a morgue with amnesia and what can only be described as super-powers. Naturally, after finding and ensuring the protection of his sister, he embarks on a gory rampage, earning himself the designation "ZEUS"

Alex Mercer prevents the detonation of a nuclear device in Manhattan, survives, and leaves New York to go on homicidal walkabout

2012 CE

 **Second Outbreak**

Alex Mercer returns and releases an improved strain of Blacklight in Penn Station

Alex Mercer visits his sister and tells her that he plans to replace humanity with Blacklight. When she expresses horror and disbelief, he infects her and leaves, claiming that she would soon understand

Dana Mercer, under the alias "Athena," works with the recently infected Sergeant James Heller against her apparently insane brother, Alex Mercer

James Heller consumes Mercer and burns off all but a shred of his available biomass in ending the infection. He and Dana, who he refers to as Athena, agree to keep in contact in order to "make sure neither one of us go bugfuck crazy and start eating people who don't fucking deserve it."

2013 CE

James Heller transfers the bank account contents of all the Blacklight personnel he has consumed into a new account and moves to Seattle with his daughter, Amaya Heller

Dana Mercer does the same and, using the identity of one of the infected she has consumed, begins to study medicine, trauma surgery with a minor in virology

2023 CE

Dana Mercer joins MSF (Doctors Without Borders) as an epidemiologist, volunteering for zones of heavy conflict

2062 CE

Amaya Heller is diagnosed with rare blood disease, Cardiac Amyloidosis, and given five years to live

2069 CE

Armstrong Outpost at Shackleton Crater is formally founded on the hundredth anniversary of the first lunar landing

2070 CE

· Amaya Heller dies

· James Heller uses a well-established identity, Billionaire Victor Manswell, to begin funding his own private spaceflight expedition, publicly citing frustration with the slow pace of official progress

2073 CE

James Heller contacts Dana Mercer, now operating a clinic at Armstrong Outpost as "Dr. Athena," and asks her to help him die. She refuses, offering to talk and try to help him work through his grief, and Heller ends the call

2075 CE

The Manswell Expedition, with 300 colonists aboard in cryo-stasis, launches successfully. James Heller sends Athena a message before using an escape pod to launch himself into the sun

Athena begins the work of finding a manager to run her clinic

2076 CE

Athena begins taking net-based college courses in assorted scientific fields, including everything from marine biology to theoretical physics

2096 CE

· The Second American Civil War Breaks out

· Athena returns to earth to work with the red cross

2103 CE

The European Space Agency establishes Lowell City, the first permanent human settlement on Mars, in Eos Chasma

2104 CE

· The Second American Civil War ends

· Athena stays behind and helps with reconstruction in Manhattan

2107 CE

Athena moves to Lowell City and establishes a new clinic there, funded by the interest of her rather impressive savings. She continues her studies

2137 CE

The Eldfell-Ashland Energy Company begins helium-3 fuel extraction from the atmosphere of Saturn

2143 CE

Construction of Gagarin Station begins in orbit of Pluto

2147 CE

Element Zero is discovered on Mars

2148 CE

Advanced Prothean technology is discovered on the southern polar region of Promethei Planum

2149 CE

The Charon Relay is discovered and activated, allowing a team of explorers, led by Jon Grissom and including doctor-of-most-anything-worth-being-a-doctor-of Athena, to reach and explore the Arcturus system, 36 light-years away

The systems alliance charter is signed by the eighteen largest nations of earth, and soon becomes the military and exploratory spearhead of humanity

2150 CE

The Systems Alliance begins surveying for colonization prospects outside the solar system

2151 CE

The Systems Alliance begins building an immense fleet and space station at the Arcturus relay hub, despite having not yet met another intelligent or spacefaring species

2152 CE

The first extrasolar human colonies are established

Athena organizes the construction of one of her clinics, which have become reasonably common and well-known, on all newly colonized worlds

2155 CE

The Systems Alliance occupies finished sections of Arcturus station, intending it to become their headquarters

Athena moves to Shanxi to manage and work in one of her clinics there

2156 CE

Arcturus Station is formally completed

Some children exposed to element zero exhibit minor telekinetic abilities

2157 CE

 **First Contact War**


	2. Leaving a note

"Athena. I'm spent. I know you're probably pissed as hell at me for doing this, but I… It's not our world anymore, you know? I'm just a soldier: a fighter and a killer. I was a father too, but that's done now. All I have left to me, that I'm good at, is hurting people. I thought of joining up again, finding some cause to fight for, but what if I choose the wrong one? Short of a nuclear bomb, there isn't much that could stop me, and even that... They're all humans, and I lost most of that before I came home from the war, and the rest was burned off by Blacklight. Last fifty years, I was just pretending for Amaya, keeping myself on the level by her compass. Without my baby girl to keep me even, I can see myself becoming a monster the slow way. Fuck that. So I'm blowing all the cash I've got on this colony thing, one last gift in the names of all the poor fuckers and evil bastards I've fucking eaten in the last sixty years. Thought of giving it to you instead, but Amaya always loved Star Trek, and I figured you'd like the idealistic shit too. If they find Klingons or some shit, I'll probably regret this, but better riding a pod into the sun now than a planet of nothing but me later.

My shit isn't your shit though. Every other fucker Zeus infected started out as an asshole before he so much as touched them, bunch of mad scientists and Wall Street mother-fuckers. You're the only one wasn't rotten to start. The rest of us were destroyers from day one, but you're a preserver. Saving lives and shit. That's why I call you Athena, you know? Not just the whole Zeus thing. Zeus was a dick. Both of 'em. As gods go, Athena wasn't so bad. I know change is inevitable, so I'm not gonna spout some bullshit about how you should never change. Just remember, what you've got isn't evil, it's just power, and power isn't good or bad, just means you've got more choices available to you, and you only have yourself to answer to if you fuck it up.

So, yah. I should probably say some wise shit now, right? Sun is getting pretty big.

Monsters don't care. They don't worry about people. So long as you care about more than your own shit, you'll still be the girl who kept my daughter safe in that damn vault. I don't care anymore. Haven't for years. All I've got left is the list of shit I could do, and too damn much of that is bloodshed. So don't grieve too much, alright girl? It's my time, and It's been a hell of an honor to know you.


	3. First, Do No Harm

Log: January 8, 2157. 1436 hours

Interrogation room 2, Shanxi Police Department South.

"Agent Loess of Alliance Intelligence, Conducting interview of- please state your name for the record-"

"Doctor Jay. Sorry, Doctor Jacob Rincewind."

"Thank you. Conducting interview of Doctor Rincewind in regards to the event in the Athena Clinic during the second week of the Turian Siege. Would you prefer I call you Doctor Jay?"

"No, its fine, just how I introduce myself to my patients. Whatever you want."

"Very well, Doctor. For the record, have you spoken of these events to anyone else?"

"No. hell no. Not like anyone who wasn't there would believe me, is it? And the first thing those fucking monsters did was knock out anything electronic that wasn't military, so it's not like I'd have proof.

"Probably not, no. So, tell me what exactly happened."

"Yah. Right. So the birds had been pounding the city for weeks, and the fucks hit the hospitals first, probably thought the big red crosses were great for target practice. So everyone who hadn't run out into the hills or made it into a shelter was bringing their wounded to whatever clinics, pharmacies, or goddamn wiccans they could find. It was- people were desperate, Doctor Athena had to kick out two shitheads who tried to kill someone for their spot on the floor, after we threw out the beds to make more space. Nobody was sleeping. The doctors, I mean. Patients either, I guess; we ran out of painkillers the fourth day. Shit, at one point, we were actually trying to grow mold, Penicillin, you know? Ancient shit, fucking poultices."

"I understand that that center had a remarkably low rate of bacterial infection. Whatever you were doing, it must have worked."

"Yah. Athena. It was all her. Anyway, we were fucking tired. I passed out four times, once during surgery. We had a nurse for a while, Carry or Cherry or something, kid actually started hallucinating, she'd managed to keep herself awake so long, spend a day passed out, and left the night after with a bunch of militia, volunteered to replace their medic. Except her. Athena, I mean. Doctor Athena. She just kept going, didn't slow down, kept doing it, you know, fixing people.

So. Two weeks in, we'd managed to reach a point where the dying didn't manage to do so before we got to them, we'd kicked out anyone capable of crawling, and sent them off in whatever direction felt least dangerous at the time; hell, we actually had few enough patients left that we could have brought the beds back in if some asshole hadn't stolen them. Of course, that's when the fucking aliens showed up."

"From what we've managed to put together, the alliance believes they intended to use the clinic as a supply dump."

"Heh. Yah, and the birds didn't give half a shit that it was already occupied."

"I understand they started threatening the wounded?"

"Not at first. It was- They were doing their weird grumbling talking thing at us, and we were trying to figure to some kind of charades for, 'too injured to move.' One of them started getting loud, waving its claws around. Seems kinda funny now, but it was fucking terrifying. I didn't know what the hell the birds were trying to say, and I knew they didn't have a damn clue what we were saying either. And they had the fucking guns. Anyway, the loud one waved its gun around for a bit, and then just got this look. And it looked fucking human. Just, 'fuck it, I'm done,' and it aimed at one of the patients. And then she was just fucking **there**."

"She?"

"Athena. It was like she fucking teleported, it was so fast. Twitchy fucking bird shot her, and she just…"

"Do you need a moment?"

"No, it isn't that, it's just. I'm not sure what happened next. I thought she exploded. For a second that's what I saw, you know? Like my brain was filling in the guts and shit I expected to see. Red everywhere. But there was black too. And by the time I realized that I needed to rethink what I saw, it was all blue."

"Blue?"

"The aliens. Their blood is blue."

"Ah, right."

"I swear there were fucking tentacles. Like some weird porno from Terra Nova. Oh, don't give me that look. Those fuckers make old Japanese porn look reserved. I haven't eaten fish sticks since I was fourteen, I swear-"

"On topic please, Doctor."

"Yeah, right. So I blink, and she's back. Clean. Me, the floor, the patients, the fucking ceiling, everything, it's all covered in bits and blue, but she's standing there clean. And she looks at me like… She just looked annoyed, like she'd spilled paint, like it was just a normal thing. Said we needed to check our patients, clean any of the blood from their wounds, some shit about amino acids."

"What did you do?"

"I checked my damn patients. It was an alien fucking invasion. The Flying Spaghetti Monster could have dropped pumpkins full of bandages and caviar on the roof, and I'd just be glad of the help. My weird-shit-o-meter broke when the spiky bastards dropped the first rocks. At that point, all I gave a shit about was keeping the wounded alive, and Doctor Athena was doing a fantastic fucking job of that.

We did what we could and dragged the survivors out of there. Some of them didn't make it, some kind of allergic reaction. Two more died on the road. We made it out of the city though, somehow. Maybe it was her. She stayed in the city though. We found an industrial sled, managed to get all the wounded to fit, and she just told me to head for the woods, and to keep them alive. And then she fucking vanished."

"Vanished?"

"It was like a fucking vampire movie. There was a blur, and she was gone. Would have been nice to have her around when the goddamn birds caught up to us in the woods a few days later, but we survived their camp, they even gave us some medical supplies, so I guess it worked out."

"And that was the last contact you had with Doctor Athena?"

"Yeah. Kinda glad. I liked her, but damn. I'm alive, and I've read the classics. Surviving is about the best anyone can hope for when the gods are involved."

"Doctor?"

"I know. But humans can't do that shit. Unless you guys are holding back some serious fucking hardware. The only time I ever saw her unhappy, she decorated the room with those responsible. And she calls herself Athena. So you'll forgive me if I decide to err on the side of not becoming wallpaper."

"I understand your perspective. That's all for now. You understand that sharing this information with anyone, at all, will end with you and everyone you know being thrown in a deep, dark hole?"

"Yeah, yeah, I read the thing. Not like I'm stupid enough to want to spread this around, anyway. Great way to end up somewhere with padded walls, and I'd probably lose my license to practice to boot."

"Very true. You could always apply for a position at Arcturus. You've field experience in treating wounds from an entirely new kind of projectile weapon, and you did manage to drag a dozen wounded civilians out of the city. Not to mention all the people you treated during the initial invasion. You could do a great deal to serve the alliance, and the pay isn't bad either."

"Huh. Not a bad idea. Think I've had enough exciting shit to last me a lifetime, and I hear the facilities there are pretty fucking shiny. Thanks Agent… Loss?"

"Loess, Doctor Rincewind. Agent Loess."

"Yeah, thanks."

End Transcript

It is worth noting that Doctor Jacob "Jay" Rincewind did go on to gain a position as a doctor on Arcturus Station, and published several papers on the treatment of the severe tissue damage caused by mass accelerator rounds.


End file.
